THE MODERATOR: We're pleased to be joined by Will Power of Team Penske.
Not only did today's second-place finish extend his points lead from 5 to 36
points, he took home his first title of the season, the Mario Andretti Road
Trophy.

Victory lane: second place Will Power

Photo by: Steve Gaysinskiy

Walk us through the race.

WILL POWER: It started well all the way to the last stop. I had the
quickest car, quite easily keeping a handy lead. Yeah, went yellow. We had
a slow stop, probably lost four seconds there, then came across a bunch of
guys on the track who just doddled all the way back. I don't know who those
guys were. That's when I was using the word 'wanker'. Cost me the race.

But I couldn't be happier for Ryan. He really needed that win. He's been
strong all weekend. But, yeah, I can't help but be a little bit
disappointed but happy because I got a good points buffer. Yeah, I think it
was a good race. Don't know what else to say. We led heaps and then we
didn't.

THE MODERATOR: Can you talk about those restarts with your teammate.

WILL POWER: Yeah, they were fine, good, clean. 'Push to pass' as usual
doesn't work. The speed limiter would engage. If you saw a couple times,
Ryan would suddenly pull a big gap, I'd hit the pit speed limiter and it
would just die. Dario would almost get me. I don't know what he's
thinking. He must have been thinking, What is this guy doing?

Yeah, good day all in all. Congratulations to Chevy to wrap up the
manufacturer's championship. Now we just have to do it for the driver's
championship.

THE MODERATOR: We'll open it up for questions.

Q. (No microphone.)

WILL POWER: I'm in win mode. I just want to win another race. You
know, every time we've been there, like Toronto, then a yellow comes and
ruins our day. An engine change at Edmonton, get back to third.

Obviously that pit exchange, had to go around Dixie. Guys were there all
the time. Wins are right there, but we're not getting them. You have to
think of the championship, as well. If we have the car to win, we go for
it. Obviously, as you get further into the season, you become more aware of
what these guys are doing, if they're behind you or in front of you, and
know how aggressive you've got to be.

Q. (Question regarding pit stops this year.)

WILL POWER: Yeah, I haven't seen what happened. It was more the people
holding me up. We had an eight-second lead. Probably lost four in the pit
stop. The rest was at the track.

I do understand that you kind of want to go slow where the accident was, it
was a big accident for sure. But these guys, just a whole lap. I don't
know whether they're told to do it because maybe they're a rival team.
Yeah, it cost us the win.

Q. Let's look forward to Baltimore a little bit. The track changes
and stuff like that, have you had a chance to look those over, start
thinking about how you're going to attack that place?

WILL POWER: We got a good idea when we actually get there. I have an
idea of what they're going to change. I think it's going to make for better
racing, so on.

Amazing, three races, we've had one yellow. I have to say that just shows
how the standard of driving in this series is so high right now. There's
rarely mistakes. I think the series should be proud of that. We're racing
on these tough tracks, and there's one yellow in three races. Pretty
impressive.

Q. You're probably thinking about winning the race, but as far as
the points, the key to one of your competitors, Scott Dixon, was getting hit
in the first lap. Your teammate, Helio, bumped into him. What is your
reaction on that? Is that just race luck?

WILL POWER: I felt that a couple times from Helio myself (laughter).
That's racing. I mean, I think what happened was Helio was on red tires,
Scott was on blacks. He probably had a little bit more grip, thought that
he needed to get him early.

I haven't seen it. I don't know what happened. But that is racing.

Q. You seemed to have the advantage today over everybody else. Is
that setup or engine?

WILL POWER: I just think in the past, since I've been at Penske, we've
had an advantage at this track. This is a very grip-limited track. This
car has a lot more grip and downforce. This is the first track you come to
where your tires actually last. In qualifying, you do your out-lap, we
don't have tire warmers, you go one lap, you have one lap to really do your
time, then it falls off. So it's a setup thing, in my opinion.

I haven't felt, you know, Honda has been lacking. It just hasn't seemed
that. You don't see it in the sectors. Chevy has done a fantastic job. As
the year goes on, we keep improving. Reliability also keeps improving.

Q. Briscoe pitted after you did, like a lap later, on the first
stint. Second stint, you came in before the yellow. He seemed to come in
during the yellow. Did that in any way give him an advantage? Did you
notice anything?

WILL POWER: I had a slow pit stop because we had the eight-second lead.
Had I not got held up on that out-lap, I don't think he would have got us.

You know, that's what I was saying before. These guys, when the pit is left
open, doddle around, because they're a lap down or whatever, cost me dearly.
You can't pass under yellow. I would have gotten a penalty if I went
motoring by these guys.

That's racing. I think in the drivers meetings, maybe race control needs to
be more adamant about when it goes yellow, there's an accident on the track,
you have to be cautious in that zone. But this is a whole lap.

Q. (No microphone.)

WILL POWER: Well, that's the rule change this year. Race control calls
pits open or pits closed. It would have worked really well for me if the
pits were left open. It's hard to make strategy calls based on that because
it's an unknown. We kept pitting early so we wouldn't get caught out by a
closed pit. That's what happened at Toronto. I had a big lead. Went
yellow. Everyone else had pitted. We stayed out saving fuel, which was
good for strategy. We basically got put to the back of the field because it
closed.

It's just one of those things. You just got to get a feel for how Beaux
Barfield makes the calls. Is he going to leave it open or is he going to
close it? There's so many factors that go into it, it's just something you
can't predict.

Q. (No microphone.)

WILL POWER: Well, it's funny that these (indiscernible) yellow caught
me out today. Yeah, I see what you mean. They had to go full-course yellow
to clean up the mess. I don't know what they do in Formula One. I don't
know what they do.

At the end of the day, the guys out on the track have an obligation to get
back and around the track or into the pits to make a stop. They just back
off, it doesn't matter. You're not going to lose any positions. So, yeah,
I'm all for pure racing so there's no manipulation by a yellow. Usually
that means leaving of the pits open all the time no matter what happens,
unless there's something unforetold and the whole track is blocked.

THE MODERATOR: Will, thank you for your time.

WILL POWER: Thank you.

Victory lane: race winner Ryan Briscoe

Photo by: Steve Gaysinskiy

THE MODERATOR: We are pleased to be joined by today's race winner, Ryan
Briscoe. It's his first win of the season. His previous best finish of the
year was third at Texas. His last victory came in 2010 at Texas. Ryan
finished second in 2008 and 2009 in Sonoma, third in 2011, now the top spot.

Walk us through today's great race.

RYAN BRISCOE: Yeah, pretty clean race actually. We were kind of
expecting it to possibly go green from start to finish like the last two
have done. So sort of in for the long haul.

We started on reds. The car was really strong. We were just trying to get
a fuel number where we knew we were going to be safe for the rest of the
race and not burning too much early on.

I was holding ground with Will at the start of the race. We went to blacks
for the next two stints. The car just wasn't quite as good. I was
struggling to maintain speed on the black tire. Then we got a timely
yellow. The 12 car guys made a little mistake in the pits. We got the lead
and finished the race on the reds.

The car was awesome again. It was the best it had been all day. Just put
my head down and held the guys off behind me for the win.

Really proud of the whole team. Flawless in the pits. Roger, with the
strategy. I don't know if any of you could hear our radio, but Roger was on
it today (laughter). He was probably talking to me six times a lap for the
whole race. He was definitely excited.

We always get excited when we come to this race. For whatever reason it is,
Team Penske cars are always strong. Will and I kind of dominated all
weekend. So hats off to Will, as well. Chevrolet, we got the championship
this weekend. Big hats off to everybody there. It's been a strong season.
They've been working so hard with us. Every race we get updates and
improvements. It's been a fierce battle with Honda. So a great welcoming
back to IndyCar this year.

THE MODERATOR: We'll start with questions.

Q. Ryan, I counted before I came down, 813 days since your last
win. What do you take away from here, satisfaction that you won or the fact
you're going to close out the season in style?

RYAN BRISCOE: Yeah, I mean, it feels good to finish the season strong,
for sure. A lot of those days, unfortunately, are off-season. I wish we
had more races. We have like five months on, seven off. That's my excuse.
It was only last year (laughter).

It's great to get the win. You get into a slump, you know, you think, Man,
am I ever going to win again? So this is definitely lifting, a confidence
builder.

We've been fast all year long. I don't know how many front-row starts we
had, so many, just had struggles executing in the race for whatever reason,
whether it's been bad luck or whatever.

Today just fell into our hands. We raced hard, ran strong. Hopefully it's
the start of maybe a couple more wins in the next two races. We'll see.

Q. I know we talked a couple weeks ago about next season. How much
do you think this provides help for a little more security in putting a deal
together for next season?

RYAN BRISCOE: It never hurts. Who knows what it means for next season.
I just want to go out every weekend and do a good job, be professional and
strong, do my job.

You know, we're sort of working hard on next year, and hopefully have
something in place here soon.

Q. Go back over the restarts, how you were able to gun it, stay
ahead of Will.

RYAN BRISCOE: You know Will on those restarts, he was exactly where I
was for the start of the race. I knew the advantage that I had being on the
left-hand side. The restarts are pretty early, and you have sort of one,
two, three kinks to the left before you brake up into turn one. It's a lot
shorter distance.

For me it was about gassing it, making sure I had the rpm right, wasn't
going to wheel spin, be nice and clean. It went according to plan and we
went from there both times.

Q. Looked like Hunter-Reay tried to push you on one of those
restarts. Was that a concern at all?

RYAN BRISCOE: No, I didn't feel a thing. I could see Will on my
outside. Knew that once we hit the hill, it was turning, he was going to
have to lift and get in line or end up out in the dirt.

You know, I wasn't too worried. I just wanted to make sure I wasn't making
a mistake. That was it.

Q. The fact that it was your teammate you were racing against on
the restarts, did that give you a little more confidence than if it was
somebody else pushing for the lead?

RYAN BRISCOE: I don't know. Will was trying as hard as anyone to try
to get me on the start. There's not much you can do from that position. I
think you're sort of relying on maybe the polesitter to make a mistake
really. There's not much else. You can't cross the start/finish line in
front of the leader.

You know, I was pretty confident with what I needed to do. Wouldn't have
done it any different if it was Franchitti on my outside.

THE MODERATOR: Ryan, congratulations on a great race. Thank you for
joining us.